Generations ago, ores were brought down from the mountains, mined laboriously by the villagers. The smith took these ores, and with the heat of the coals also mined, forged steel. But precious little steel could actually be made, for though a fertile land for growing crops and raising livestock, the earth here did not surrender mineral wealth.

This meant that what little metal there was, had to be carefully used. And often, for a land where outsiders saw only farmers and backward rustics, it was used to defend. And so, a sword was forged. Eons of repelling attacks from before the dawn of modern history had built of the nation hardy and skilled warriors.

A nation that held such powerful soldiers, if not the resources to properly equip her soldiers, had only one logical course of action. To expand by force. To obtain what it did not have by the act of military conquest.

The steel was folded a number of times, to remove impurities. With almost religious reverence, the blade took shape as the smith poured his heart and soul into the weapon, nine pounds of fine Doman steel. Over a period of weeks, it was prepared, polished and sharpened. Generations of steel work before this and generations after it meant this nation built fine, strong swords that in the hands of their masters earned themselves an almost mythical reputation that matched the reverence with which the blades were first forged.

The warrior took the blade from the smith, in another ceremony. This time it was truly of a religious nature. The smith and the warrior blessed the new blade, and the warrior swore an oath to the gods and his king. The oath was sworn on his sword, and therefore, on his life. The warrior joined his brothers in arms under the banner of his lord, each of them bore similar blades. Their lords assembled under the banner of their king, and they marched.

Under the glint of these blades as they arced through air, flesh, and bone, armies were vanquished and nations conquered. Under the glint of the blade that was forged from the ores brought from the mountain, the warrior fought in the name of his king. From his homeland northwards, he fought in the mountains of Nikeah. He and his kin fought north. His blade and her kin vanquished anything the mountains held.

The warrior weaved, reliant on agility to defend himself rather than the bulky armour plating of his enemies. Where his foes used two-handed blades that seemed designed to beat their opponents to death rather than cut them down, he stabbed through their armour with his own, more nimble blade. Where his enemies swung wildly, every thrust and swing of his blade was surgically precise.

A decade of fighting, and the blade and its master had fought bravely. Though it had sustained nicks and battle damage, the warrior had lovingly protected his blade as it had protected him. It still shone, mirror-bright, as the day he had first been handed the blade. It remained so another decade later, when the warrior, now aged by time and conflict, passed the blade on to his son.

The son marched south with the sons of his father's brothers, into the Veldt. Like the battles his father had fought with the blade, what foes came forth were no match. The sword gained more nicks and scars, but the blade stayed polished. The weapon remained almost perfect bar the minor battle wear and tear it had suffered. In time, the son grew older, and became a father himself. The sword also grew older, but unlike the humans who bore it and the humans that it had killed, it was no less able to take part in war.

And so, the sword was passed to the grandson. His campaign took him across the mountains of Nikeah into the mountains of Narshe. Unlike his father and grandfather, the grandson faced more hardy and resolute enemies. His sword stayed steadfast, and though at the end of one battle only he and three others lived on the body-strewn field, he and the three had won. Though they did not take all of Narshe, they had taken some of it. This would be the undoing of all that had been fought for over the three generations. At the time, though, victory had apparently been snatched from the jaws of defeat.

Over time, the bearers changed, but the blade did not, except to gain yet more nicks and scratches, but never did the shine of the blade fade away. The lands it had conquered however, did. The Narsheans began their campaign to free their lands as the son of the grandson received the sword. He fought as bravely as his forefathers, but his campaign ended in defeat. His second campaign saw the Veldt rise against the dominion of his king, and this ended in a victory of sorts, in that when the dust of conflict had cleared and the blood had drained from the battlefields, the Veldt still stood under the same banners he and the sword fought for.

The sword kept cutting a path through time, even as it reached a century in age, it remained in use as it always had been. The sixth bearer of the blade saved the king from militants attempting a coup, shedding blood in the capital city. In the hands of the sixth master, the sword did as it always had done, even as it parried and clashed with similar blades.

Over generations, the world changed. The bearer changed. Until, the tenth master of the sword held it as his nation faced invasion. Nikeah had become free. The Veldt had become free. The empire the sword had helped take, was gone. A new empire had risen in the south. That empire had been born in a different manner.

Less than three years ago, vast mining machines extracted the ore and coal from the mountains. Vast smelters formed the steel. The red hot steel was poured into moulds. No ceremony or fuss was wasted on this steel, for there was much of it. The steel cooled in the moulds. The steel was inspected, to ensure it had moulded correctly. The parts were picked out and taken to assembly lines. In under a day, this steel would be useable for what it had been intended to do.

The tree had stood for decades, but it had been felled in minutes. An hour had dragged it to the sawmill. Another hour had carved it into a certain shape. After transport to the factory and few more hours whittling and sanding, and it had become yet another shape. It was now the stock of a rifle.

The steel parts were assembled, as the wooden parts were prepared. Steel and wood were united. The weapon was inspected. The bolt moved effortlessly. The barrel had no flaws. The action functioned without fault. The magazine was inserted and removed without failure. It was functional. It was wrapped in oil-laden paper and stuck in a crate alongside dozens identical to it. The crate was stuck with dozens identical to it aboard a train.

It was a four and a half kilogram mass of steel and wood, eight hundred millimetres in length. It fed twenty rounds of three-aught-two Vector rifle ammunition from stamped steel detachable box magazines. What had a day before been molten steel and a tree was now able to fire a bullet almost three hundred meters in semi-automatic fire. It was the standard rifle of the armed forces of the new, emerging empire and under the blaze of the drilled fire, those same armed forces were intended to do as the sword had done generations before.

Some time later, the crate was opened. The Vector-Two rifle was handed to a soldier. He checked it over himself, cycling the bolt to ensure it was flawless. He attached the bayonet to ensure the rifle accepted the twelve-inch long blade correctly, and that it did not obstruct the barrel. He readied the magazine, loading in the brass cylinders with pointed tips. First one, then two, then twenty in the magazine. The bolt was cycled. The weapon was aimed. The weapon was fired. The sights were adjusted. The weapon fired again. The sights were adjusted again. The weapon was fired. Again. Again. Again. The target was hit every time.

Nothing about this weapon was ceremonial, nor did it's user even regard it as anything but a tool. It was merely something given to him, like his helmet or his webbing. The bullets were just another set of items given to him to be fired off in training or at his enemies. Nothing was special about this rifle. It had no history. It was not hand crafted. There were many like it. All that made it different was that it was his.

The weapon remained in use, shooting at nothing but practice targets. It shot true, without malfunction. By the time it finally was lined up with a living target, it had already fired thousands of three-aught-two rounds downrange. The target, a rampaging monster, was felled by a burst of five rounds rapid from the semi-automatic rifle. Then came the Marandan crisis. There, the weapon fired many times. Numerous rebels were killed or injured by the weapon. More than once a bayonet was affixed, either to charge or to defend against an enemy charge. Even then, it had no history. As far as the soldier was concerned, it was still a tool.

Even as the rifle travelled halfway across the world in his hands, it was just a tool. The barrel had been replaced. The weapon had been cleaned and maintained, but only to ensure it functioned. It did not gleam as it had in the factory. The wooden stock had become battered and scarred with minor damage. From the virtual massacre at Anceman to the city of Gichaog, the rifle had served.

The sword had served also. In close quarters, it had felled a number of enemy soldiers, as it's master rallied his men. Ranks of crossbow sand bolt action rifles staged desperate stands to hold the enemy off. Street by street, the enemy were met by volleys of arrows and rifle fire. But the enemy returned fire, at a faster rate. Street by street, the defenders fell. The city hall was now at risk. The owner of the sword, the tenth of his lineage to carry the blade in battle, carried a weapon his ancestors may have frowned upon. But the revolver was holstered, the ammunition expended. This street was one of the last chances to defend the city hall. The sword-bearer knew this was it. Victory, or death in the attempt.

The rifleman was just a line trooper. He had no real concept of tactics, and as far as he was concerned, victory came when his superiors told him so. His fellow riflemen were of the same opinions. The sergeant had slightly different opinions, but ultimately did not identify this as a last line of defence.

Bayonets were fixed to rifles. Grenades were flung. The defenders opened fire as the attackers charged. The hail of bolt action shots and crossbows dropped a few attackers, but the return volleys ripped apart the walls the defenders hid behind. Great gouges appeared in masonry and timber. The rifleman and his comrades moved forward.

The swordsman drew the blade. It had not failed his family for ten generations. It had been a part of every major conflict of his nation for hundreds of years. He could not fail now. He felt the hands of his ancestors swing the sword with him as the gleaming arc sliced through the first steel helmet that neared him. Beside him, his brothers in arms joined the counter-charge, but bayonet drill from the enemy felled a good number of them. The swordsman ducked and weaved as the steel-helmeted enemy lunged at him. He parried and swiped, a cyclone of carnage in the lines of the enemy.

The rifleman raised the weapon. He pulled the trigger. The firing pin slammed into the primer, detonating the fifty-five grains of gunpowder. The expanding gases from the exploding four grams of smokeless power propelled the bullet, a pointed copper-jacketed lead round, down the barrel at over seven hundred meters per second, flying at incredible speeds as the full force of the charge was behind it. It did not slow down as it passed through the blade of the sword.

The blade shattered, the bullet smashing history in an instant as it flew through it at supersonic speed. The swordsman almost let of a cry of despair as he saw the shards of metal fly away. Glinting glass-like shards of the mirror blade flew into nothing. The swordsman watched it as in slow motion. It had been his family's weapon for ten generations. It had served his country for ten generations. And now it was destroyed. A unique blade forged painstakingly for days and cared for and maintained for hundreds of years was obliterated into shrapnel by a nondescript lump of steel and lead that had been forged into shape in seconds alongside millions identical to it. No one had ever cared for the bullet. It was disposable. It had one purpose, to fire once, and hurl itself into a target. It could only ever hit or miss once.

The next bullet served its country only for a brief moment as the firing pin hit the primer. It went down the same barrel as the last one. The brass cartridge bounced off the cobblestones as the swordsman began to fall. The bullet kept going, not slowed as it shattered the skull and mind of the swordsman much like the previous round had shattered his blade. The swordsman fell to the cobblestones as the next three brass casings bounced away. The rifleman and his comrades kept firing, the close range fire ripping through more than one enemy in many cases. The still-cooling fifty six millimetre long brass casing pinged long before the last dull thump of a body on the pavement.

History lay scattered below the bodies. The future lay smoking all around, the brass casings still cooling off. The surviving attackers reloaded and moved on. The defenders bled. The city burned, as the infantry and the magitek walkers advanced.

This post has been edited by Del S on 12th March 2008 15:31

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